Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 15:13:05 +0100 From: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> To: Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Message-ID: <20010806151305.B64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> In-Reply-To: <20010806150653.C96762@jake.akitanet.co.uk>; from paul@akita.co.uk on Mon, Aug 06, 2001 at 03:06:53PM %2B0100 References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20010806150653.C96762@jake.akitanet.co.uk>
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On Mon, Aug 06, 2001 at 03:06:53PM +0100, Paul Robinson wrote: | On Aug 6, j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> wrote: | | > We hear all of the stories of how OEMs had to install Windows if they sold | > MS-DOS, but how did MSFT get the clout to require this in the first place? | > How did they go from being just-another-DOS to having the power to tell OEMs | > what they could and could not do, and price-gouging them if they did not | > comply? | | They licensed DOS to IBM who produced the original PC. It was a default with | the first IBM's, which at first were un-cloneable until the BIOS got reverse | engineered. All a bit before my time, but I suspect by that time DOS had | become a standard, especially as plenty of business software would have been But couldn't you also get PC-DOS, Compaq-DOS, DR-DOS, etc? I remember reading that at the DOS level, software (and firmware) were simple enough to reverse engineer without much effort in comparison to today, where Windows has thousands of calls in the API. Why did OEMs allow themselves to be put in that position, when other DOS clone manufacturers would have gladly offered more favorable licensing than MSFT did? | available for it by that time, whereas CP/M and GeOS would have been rather | lacking. Ah, GeOS. I spent the better part of a few evenings last week browsing C64 nostalgia sites. :-) | Once you own the industry standard, it's not that hard to bring OEMs into | line with restrictive licenses regarding competing OSes, and before you know | it, you have effectively a monopoly. :-) | | -- | Paul Robinson ,--------------------------------------- | Technical Director @ Akita | A computer lets you make more mistakes | PO Box 604, Manchester, M60 3PR | than any other invention with the | T: +44 (0) 161 228 6388 (F:6389)| possible exceptions of handguns and | | Tequila - Mitch Ratcliffe | `----- jm -- "Investigators have discovered the cause of the TWA 800 explosion was a frayed wire. The wire became frayed when it was struck by a missile." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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